I delved into the pages of "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel" by Gabrielle Zevin. The narrative unfolds the lives of Sam and Sadie, two college friends who evolve into creative partners in video game design. Their journey is a tapestry of fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and a form of immortality, all woven into a unique love story that captivated me like no other.
Contact US!
Have a question? Suggestion?
by Gabrielle Zevin
I delved into the pages of “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel” by Gabrielle Zevin. The narrative unfolds the lives of Sam and Sadie, two college friends who evolve into creative partners in video game design. Their journey is a tapestry of fame, joy, tragedy, duplicity, and a form of immortality, all woven into a unique love story that captivated me like no other.
This love story uniquely portrays the challenges and triumphs of a relationship in the context of their shared creative endeavors.
On a bitter-cold day in December of his junior year at Harvard, Sam Masur exits a subway car and sees Sadie Green amid the hordes of people waiting on the platform. He calls her name. For a moment, she pretends she hasn’t heard him, but then, she turns, and a game begins: a legendary collaboration that will launch them to stardom.
These friends, who have been close since childhood, take bold steps, borrow money, and seek favors. Even before they graduate from college, they have birthed their first blockbuster, Ichigo. In a blink, the world is at their feet. Sam and Sadie, not yet twenty-five, are shining with brilliance, success, and wealth. But these attributes can’t shield them from their emotional rollercoaster of creative aspirations and the heartbreaks that come with it.
Spanning thirty years, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, to Venice Beach, California, and lands in between and far beyond, Gabrielle Zevin‘s Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow provides a profound exploration of the diverse nature of identity, disability, failure, the redemptive possibilities in play, and above all, our deep-seated need to connect: to be loved and to love. It’s a journey that will make you reflect on your life and relationships.
When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!
Subscribe to Sharing Jan's Love Newsletter!
by Bushra Rehman
Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman is a book I encouraged friends to read before I finished reading it. I highly recommend this page-turner novel, which is punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved books. Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a must-read coming-of-age story of Razia Mirza, a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.
Razia Mirza, the protagonist, leaps off the page or screen. Bushra Rehman describes Corona with prose that is vibrant and clear-eyed. When I lived in Brooklyn, I had, on a few occasions, meetings in Corona a decade before the novel’s setting. Reading the book made me remember that time and place and understand intuitively the world that Razia was struggling to reconcile.
Razia’s choice between her heart and her family is one I will not reveal. However, the novel defines the conflicts between the Pakistani-American community and the love that Razia and Anglea experience in clear prose, and the reader can easily accept various resolutions.
The choice that Rasia makes left me desiring to know what happens next. I have added Bushra Rehman to my favorite authors and plan to read more of her novels.
I had this novel on my list for the last month but could not get to it until now. I wish I had read it sooner. It is the eighth book I have read in 2023.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview,
Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. Razia’s heart is broken when a family rift drives the girls apart. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city.
When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When an Aunty discovers their relationship in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her future.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Alexandra Tanner
Today, I began reading Alexandra Tanner‘s debut novel, Worry: A Novel. The New Yorker praised it as “dryly witty,” The New York Times Book Review called it “fabulously revealing.” The story follows two siblings-turned-roommates who try to navigate an absurd world on the verge of calamity. It explores existentialism and sisterhood in a Seinfeldian style.
In March 2019, Jules Gold, a 28-year-old woman, felt anxious, frustrated with her art, and addicted to the internet. She lives alone in the apartment she used to share with her ex-fiancé. Her younger sister Poppy unexpectedly comes to stay with her indefinitely. Poppy, who attempted suicide a year and a half ago, is looking for work and purpose in Brooklyn. Meanwhile, Jules spends her days scrolling through the feeds of Mormon mommy bloggers and waiting for something to happen in her life.
Poppy’s hives, which she has had since childhood, flare up again. Jules has health problems with her uterus. Poppy adopts a poorly behaved-rescue dog named Amy Klobuchar. Poppy’s mother, who recently became a devout Messianic Jew, starts believing in the same deep-state conspiracy theories as Jules’ online mommies. Jules half-heartedly tries to find the source of her ennui and cruelly blames Poppy for not being a good enough friend, writer, or sister. As the year progresses and a new decade approaches, a disastrous trip back to Florida forces Jules and Poppy to question their futures and whether they want to spend them together or apart.
Worry is a darkly funny and deadpan portrayal of two sisters struggling through anxiety and uncertainty in America. A bold new voice in contemporary fiction writes it.
by Rebecca Kauffman
I began reading “I’ll Come to You: A Novel” by Rebecca Kauffman today. This sweeping and compact novel explores themes of intimacy, memory, loss, grief, and reconciliation. It delves into the wonder, terror, frustration, fear, and magic of confronting the unknowable in the world and within ourselves. The New York Times recommended it as one of six books to read this week.
I’ll Come to You is a modern and classic story of a family that follows intersecting lives throughout 1995, centered around the anticipation and arrival of a child. Through empathy, insight, and humor, Rebecca Kauffman delves into overlapping narratives: a couple struggling to conceive, which has both softened and hardened their relationship; a woman whose husband of forty years has left her without explaining why; and the man who is disastrously trying to win her affection. Additionally, there’s a couple in denial about an impending health crisis and their son, who is awkwardly navigating middle age while unable to stop lying.
Ultimately, these storylines build to a dramatic and harrowing climax. With heart, wit, and courage, the characters confront challenges that test and define their family bonds.
When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!
by Audrey Blake
I did something I had not done in decades. After finishing the Big Library Read of 2022, The Girl in His Shadow, by Audrey Blake, I immediately started reading the sequel, The Surgeon’s Daughter. The protagonist, Nora Beady, was such a strong female lead that I could not wait to find out what happened next. In the sequel, Nora Beady, the only female student at a prestigious medical school in Bologna, is a rarity. Nora’s tenacity and passion reminded me of Jan, the love of my life.
In the 19th century, women were supposed to remain at home and raise children, so her unconventional, indelicate ambitions to become a licensed surgeon offended the men around her.
Ms. Blake has a split personality— because she is the creative alter ego of writing duo Jaima Fixsen and Regina Sirois, two authors who met as finalists of a writing contest and have been writing together happily ever since.
The pen name – Audrey Blake – was in response to the publishers recommending a more straightforward author’s name. Regina’s daughter is named Audrey, and Jaima’s son is Blake.
The Surgeon’s Daughter is the forty-fourth book I have read this year and the ninety-ninth since the beginning of 2019. My Goodreads goal for 2022 was twenty-two books.
The Goodreads summary provides an overview.
Under constant scrutiny, Nora’s successes are taken for granted; her mistakes used as proof that women aren’t suited to the field.
Everything changes when she allies herself with Magdalena Morenco, the sole female doctor on-staff. Together the two women develop new techniques to improve a groundbreaking surgery: the Cesarean section. It’s a highly dangerous procedure and the research is grueling, but even worse is the vitriolic response from men. Most don’t trust the findings of women, and many can choose to deny their wives medical care.
Already facing resistance on all sides, Nora is shaken when she meets a patient who will die without the surgery. If the procedure is successful, her work could change the world. But a failure could cost everything: precious lives, Nora’s career, and the role women will be allowed to play in medicine.
The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. All donations are tax-deductible.
I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.
by Tayari Jones
Today, I started reading “An American Marriage” by Tayari Jones. It is a masterpiece of storytelling that delves into people’s souls as they confront the past and move forward into the future with hope and pain. The book, which has won numerous awards and was selected as one of The New York Times’ 100 Best Books of the 21st Century, is a must-read for any contemporary fiction enthusiast.
Newlyweds Celestial and Roy embody both the American Dream and the New South. He is a young executive, and she is an artist on the brink of an exciting career. But as they settle into their routines, they are ripped apart by circumstances neither could have imagined. Their story reflects the complexities of modern relationships and the impact of the criminal justice system on individuals and families.
Roy’s arrest and subsequent twelve-year sentence for a crime he didn’t commit shatters their world. Though fiercely independent, Celestial finds herself adrift, seeking solace in Andre, her childhood friend and the best man at their wedding. As Roy’s time in prison stretches on, she struggles to hold on to the love that has always been her anchor. When Roy’s conviction is finally overturned after five years, he returns to Atlanta, ready to pick up the pieces of their shattered life, a testament to their resilience and enduring love.
This stirring love story is a profoundly insightful look into the hearts and minds of three people who are at once bound and separated by forces beyond their control. “An American Marriage” is a masterpiece of storytelling—an intimate look deep into people’s souls who must reckon with the past while moving forward—with hope and pain—into the future.
When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!
by Sunjeev Sahota
Today, I started reading The Spoiled Heart: A Novel by Sunjeev Sahota. Nayan Olak has been seeing Helen Fletcher around town. She has returned to live in the run-down house at the end of the lane with her teenage son. Though she seems guarded, Nayan cannot help but be drawn to her. He has not risked love since losing his young family in a terrible accident twenty years ago.
After Nayan’s tragedy, his labor union, a pillar of his community, became his refuge and purpose. It was his way of striving for a better and fairer world. Now, Nayan wants to become the leader of the union, a decision that sets the stage for a gripping conflict. His opponent, Megha, a newcomer, is a more formidable challenger than he could have anticipated. Nayan is now in a battle that could redefine his life and community. The differences between Nayan and Megha escalate and threaten the ideals he holds dear. He finds solace in his growing bond with Helen. Unbeknownst to him, their connection is not just a product of their present circumstances but a thread that weaves through their lives, holding secrets that could shatter them. The suspense builds, leaving the readers on the edge of their seats and eager to uncover the truth.
In one sense, The Spoiled Heart is a tragedy in the classic mold, tracing one man’s seemingly inevitable fall. However, it is also an explosively contemporary story of how a few words or a single action, which may appear careless to one person, can be charged for another, triggering a cascade of unimaginable consequences. It is a blazing achievement from one of Britain’s foremost living writers, a vivid and multilayered exploration of the mysteries of the heart, how community is forged and broken, and the shattering impact of secrets and assumptions alike.
